Hunters and animal trainers require easier ways to control their animals while hunting and training. Remote controlled collars are therefore convenient and well known, permitting the hunter or trainer to remotely activate stimulation devices such as electrodes or speakers mounted on the collar. However, the remote transmitters for such remote controlled collars are bulky and can be difficult for the hunter or trainer to handle in an active field situation.
For example, in a hunting situation, a dog will often become conditioned by the movement of the hunter's weapon as he gets ready to shoot. The dog learns that once the weapon is raised what follows is gunfire and a bird falling. However, this conditioning may cause the dog to “break” or “go before commanded”. Such “breaking” is a problem because the dog's movement causes the birds to flare up and spoil the shoot. In some cases, the dog may even chase the birds before they are shot. To correct this problem, hunters often use remote controlled electronic collars of the kind described above to stop the dog from moving as the hunter's gun moves or the birds flush. However, it is almost impossible to correct the dog in time with a bulky remote control transmitter located in the hunter's pocket, since the hunter has to let go of his gun, find the remote transmitter, get it out of his pocket, and then find and press the correct button.
It is well known that animal behavior can be modified either with positive or negative stimulation, provided the stimulation takes place at or near the same time as the occurrence of the behavior. Remote controlled electronic collars, often called “e-collars”, were developed for dog trainers so that they could make quick corrections. To be effective, these corrections must be made within 0.25 to one second after the behavior seeking to be modified. If correction occurs outside this one second window, it will be ineffective in modifying the behavior. In some cases, applying a correction beyond the one second window may unintentionally reinforce another behavior. E-collars work very well provided they are used within this time period.
As mentioned above, this problem is most acute in a hunting scenario, since the hunter's hands are generally fully occupied holding the weapon and it is not easy to access the transmitter to make a correction in less than one second. In fact, it is generally accepted that such corrections cannot easily be made in less than three seconds. This delay in applying stimulation to the animal renders it nearly impossible to successfully modify animal behavior. For example, for a dog running at 44 feet per second, the dog would travel two thirds the length of a football field, before correction could be applied. By that time, the dog is unable to associate the stimulation to the offensive behavior.
As a further example, a hunter wanting to stop his dog from jumping out of a boat on a missed shot, needs to stimulate the dog at the instant the dog makes its first move to leave the boat. This is not possible if the hunter's hands are occupied holding his weapon and the remote transmitter is in his pocket. By the time the hunter is able to access the transmitter, the dog will be in the water and likely approaching the decoys. Stimulating the dog at this later point could result in the dog being conditioned to stay away from the decoys rather than preventing him from exiting the boat. This would result in the dog being reluctant to pick up any birds downed near the decoy area.
One solution is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,830,014 to Lalor, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Lalor discloses a remote control transmitter that includes a vibration sensor, thereby permitting remote control signals to be sent to the animal collar by tapping the remote transmitter. Lalor also discusses using voice recognition circuits to control the remote transmitter. These solutions have disadvantages. The former still requires that the hunter have at least one hand free to control the remote transmitter. In a hunting situation or other activities, the hunter's hands may be occupied with other devices such as guns, game calls, leashes or various combinations of such devices, and it may be difficult to access the master transmitter in time to make an animal correction. In the latter solution, the use of verbal commands in a hunting situation may not be suitable as any sound could scare the hunted prey.
Accordingly, there is a need for a remote control system that can be used to control a remote animal collar that solves the problems presented by the existing devices. There is a need for a remote control system that can be activated without sound and without the hunter or trainer having to remove his hands from his weapon. There is a need for a system that provides the hunter or trainer the ability to control the collar to stimulate the animal within the one second window mentioned above so as to give the animal an opportunity to effectively associate the objectionable behavior with the stimulation. There is a further need for a remote control system that allows the hunter to handle a gun in a safe manner while still being able to apply an effective corrective stimulation to an animal.